Most asylum seekers did show up for court hearings

Tuesday

Jul 10, 2018 at 1:17 PMJul 10, 2018 at 1:17 PM

Those of us who were on the phone call with Rep. Roger Marshall in his office (June 22 Journal) heard him claim that under the pre-Trump border security system, which had asylum seekers wear ankle monitors and keep their children with them while awaiting court hearings (rather than being imprisoned and having their children hauled away to an undisclosed location), 97 percent of the monitored parents went AWOL and failed to show up for their hearings.

Marshall was, as I suspected at the time, misleading us.

Ninety-seven percent is indeed a number essential to this tragic story, but not as Marshall asserted. In reality, at least 97 percent of monitored asylum-seekers do appear for their hearings*. It seems President Donald Trump's habit of precisely inverting reality has rubbed off on his avid supporter Roger Marshall.

* One of many reports: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/06/22/trump-created-the-immigration-crisis-out-of-sheer-ignorance-and-cruelty/?utm_term=.46b44a431de2.

STAN COX, Salina

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